Friday, May 16, 2014

April was a busy month full of
national observance and recognition days that tie into Tahoe SAFE Alliance’s
mission and vision; Sexual Assault Awareness Month, National Youth Violence
Prevention Week, National Child Abuse Prevention Month, Denim Day and National
Volunteer Appreciation Week. Incline and Truckee High Schools’ Teen Peace
Projects, a youth club ran by Tahoe SAFE Alliance, did some amazing awareness
and outreach to their peers to recognize Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Teen Peace Project teens at both
Incline and Truckee High Schools joined together to travel to Reno to tour the
Kid Kottage Kampus center where SART examinations are done. SARTs,
or Sexual Assault Response Teams, are multidisciplinary interagency teams of
individuals working collaboratively to provide services for the community by
offering specialized sexual assault intervention services. These specialized services are provided by
trained individuals, such as nurses, detectives and rape crisis center advocates.
Debra Robison, a licensed sexual assault examiner nurse for both adult and
pediatric, gave the tour. During the tour she informed the students that 155
adult and 49 children exams were conducted last year. Although the tour was a
somber and eye opening experience for the high school students, they also felt
some comfort that compassionate medical services for rape survivors exist in
our area.

Denim Day is a yearly awareness day
recognizing Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Denim Day was originally triggered
by a ruling by the Italian Supreme Court where a rape conviction was overturned
because the justices felt that since the victim was wearing tight jeans she
must have helped her rapist remove her jeans, thereby implying consent. This decision did not recognize that coercion,
threats, and force are part of the act of rape. (For more information visit;
http://denimdayusa.org/about/history/ ) The Truckee High School Teen Peace Project
held a week long raffle for this one day event. They spent Monday thru Thursday
passing out buttons, informing students about Denim Day and encouraging
students to wear jeans on Friday.
Participatory students were entered in the raffle to win a basket full
of donated prizes!

During the month of April, Teen
Peace Project students at both high schools wanted to extend awareness beyond
Sexual Assault during April. They chose to raise awareness in their school and
amongst their peers about the need to end Sexual Harassment and the importance
of Healthy Relationships. The clubs designated a week to each of the topics,
and within those weeks used posters and the morning announcements to share
statistics and information with the student body.

It was inspiring to see our local
youth motivated, excited and enthusiastic to participate in Sexual Assault
Awareness Month as well as create awareness among their peers! It was also moving to see our local schools
supportive of school-wide campaigns around the topic of Sexual Assault. The Teen Peace Projects energy has carried
over to May which is National Teen Self-Esteem Awareness month. Check out, and like, their Facebook page to
see what they’re up to (https://www.facebook.com/TeenPeaceProject?ref=hl)!